Religion: What a Chaplain Learned

A onetime Army Air Forces chaplain, now. back in his pastorate, last week told his parishioners how a year in the Army had changed his thinking. Wrote the Rev. Jule Ayers, 33, in a letter to the 850 members of Wilkes-Barre, Pa.’s First Presbyterian Church:

“Having been .a chaplain in the Army to a unit composed of Catholics, Protestants and Jews, I have become more interested in the ties which unite men spiritually than in the influences which divide them. Thus, I am determined to be known in my community as a minister of God first, a Protestant second, and a Presbyterian third. . . . I am desirous of having the fullest measure of fellowship attainable with Jews and Catholics. . . .

“Because there is always an enthusiastic response to dynamic religion in the Army, I want my church to express a faith and a fellowship which is vital and transforming. . . . I shall preach more expository sermons than I used to. . . .

“In my pastoral calling I shall spend more time contacting men. I shall reach them at their work. I need them. They need the Church. . . .

“I am going to have a more Bible-centered program than I have had previously. I want young people to know God through an understanding of the Scriptures. In the Army, when I observed Protestants and Catholics engaged in discussions on matters of belief, I found that the Protestants appeared at a disadvantage. Profiting by this fact, I want my church to know why it is Protestant, what are the distinctive tenets of the Protestant branch of the Christian Church, and how indigenous and basic Protestantism is to the genius of the Christian faith.”